Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Mohamed Atta, entrepreneur

Government records in Florida reveal that Mohamed Atta was the President of a company in Orlando with a partner whose web of 'dummy' corporations appear characteristic of the type used in terrorist financing and illicit money laundering, the MadCowMorningNews has learned.

One day after the 9/11 Commission Report says the terrorist ringleader finished making withdrawals in Virginia Beach, VA. totaling $18,000 from a SunTrust Bank account, April 5th, 2001, Hassan Erroudani, an Orlando man with close ties to the Moroccan Embassy in Washington D.C., filed incorporation papers with the state of Florida listing the President of KARAM LLC as "Mohamed Atta."

The document lists an address for "President" Atta in Marseilles, France, which can be traced to a graphic design firm there.

Atta told Amanda Keller that he was French. Even so, your first thought is probably my first thought: We must be talking about another guy named Mohammed Atta.

(Side note: Just for grins, I plugged the names "Mohamed Atta" and "Mohammed Atta" into Lycos' WhoWhere site. There are two "hits" in New Jersey and Connecticut. A pay service reports the presence of several other Attas; none are in Florida.)

Even Hopsicker considered "a little far-fetched" the idea that the 9/11 Atta and the "Karam" Atta could be one and the same. So Hopsicker got on the phone with Hassan Erroudani, who happens to be the president of the Moroccan-American Chamber of Commerce. Their dialog was of no small interest:

Trust us... We had been nothing if not polite, even to the point of suggesting a reason for why the whole thing might be just a big misunderstanding...

“Was it perhaps just a case of two different men with similar names?” we asked helpfully.

This sounds like the behavior of a man caught off guard. Suspicious indeed! If the two Attas were separate people, why not simply say so? Surely, Ennoudani could have laughed and said: "Yeah, yeah, different guy. We get this all the time..."

Even so, I still have a difficult time accepting that the two Attas can be the same, and for one good reason: Karam listed Atta as a corporate officer in January of 2003.

Atta's current address, if Florida Division of Corporate Records can be believed, is 4124 West Colonial Dr, Orlando, FL., the location of an International House of Pancakes.

This Erroudani fellow seems genuinely intriguing. He owned a car export/import business oriented to high-end customers in the Middle East, and his partner in that concern appears to be the Naval Attaché with the Turkish embassy.

Hopsicker goes on to provide persuasive evidence that the "used car" trade has provided cover for money transfers used in illegal operations, including terrorism.

Moreover, Hopsicker says that Mohamed Atta did a brief stint as a used car salesman in Germany, an assertion mentioned here. (A strange posting, that; nothing else is said.) Other sources indicate that the "used car" Atta may be a lookalike. The matter is, alas, intricately connected to the controversy over whether Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague. Most people consider that allegation spurious or a red herring.

As noted earlier, Erroudani is an important figure in the Moroccan-American community. Keep that fact in mind as you assess the following:

Mohamed Atta phoned the Moroccan Embassy in DC on January 2, 2001—for reasons unknown, speaking to persons unknown—a fact buried in the notes of the 9/11 Commission’s report.

And Atta bodyguard Marwan Al Shehhi, pilot of the second plane to hit the Twin Towers, had flown to Casablanca, Morocco and back, also for reasons unknown, and visiting person unknown, in early January of 2001.

All of these leads place us on the road to the same place. Does Webster's Dictionary still come "Morocco bound"?

I still have a hard time believing that the two Attas are the same person. In the clandestine worlds -- in the realms of spooks and of criminals -- people have been known to trade identities the way other men might trade business cards.

One other possibility must be considered: Perhaps Mohammed Atta's father -- also named Mohammed Atta, although he sometimes goes by the name Mohammed El-Amir -- was involved with these odd companies?

I've spoken about the elder Atta, and his possible connection to Magdy El-Amir, here. (Magdy El-Amir is an accused terror funder who was defended by Michael Chertoff -- later appointed head of Homeland Security!) Magdy has a brother named Mohammed, although the weight of the evidence indicates that he is not the same man as Mohamed Atta's father. (El-Amir is a fairly common Egyptian name.)

Even so, it is undeniable that, in 2005, the elder Atta -- a lawyer in Cairo -- announced himself as a mad-for-blood jihadist. He also told a number of interviewers that his son was still alive after September 11, 2001.

Most observers decided that Atta the elder was either misinformed or had lost his reason.

Right now, I still believe that Mohamed Atta flew that jet, and I think he died in 2001. But I also think that we have a far from complete view of the man's activities.

I am still waiting for EVIDENCE that Atta flew one of the planes. The very fact that "there were 19 Arab hijackers" is part of the official story detracts greatly from the credibility of that little detail, for one thing, and then there is the shared opinion of professional pilots that no person could have performed the multi-G turns observed in the videos.

If this comment makes me a tranny, then so be it. From the evidence I have seen over the past few years, I would conclude that at least those two planes hitting the towers were remote controlled.

One other point: While Hopsicker is able to dig up a lot of smelly facts for us, I have yet to see him build a cohesive story around them. Seems that he likes to leave these interesting tidbits hanging, perhaps for others to build a case?

Greg Palast, on the other hand, has taken his investigatory work directly to Congress for some action.

posted by rapt : 1:39 PM

very good piece, I really find very interesting what Hopsicker is doing ! why is there a media blackout on the life of these terrorists ? why nobody from the MSM has taken interest in this story is really troubling.

I would like my 2 cents on the remote controlled airplane theory. This theory is not dead in my mind (even if I'm agnostic, it's part of my "open mind" policy). For me, it's totally non-related to the CD / Tranny theory. If one is true or false doesn't make any difference for the other.

What are the pieces of evidence we have that the hijacker were on the plane ? - the surveillance tapes at the airports- the phone calls from the plane (either cell phone or air phone) (but I must admit I find the transcript of some of those calls are very weird)- the recordings from the cockpit - the "evidence" of there presence in the planes like the car they found at the airport in less than 24h (with Coram and flight manual), the passport found among the debris (why bring a passport on a domestic flight ?)

All these proof only come from one source, the FBI. How easy would it be to fabricate / simulate those and "plant" them ?

The remote controlled plane theory would explain- why they chose only airplane models (boeing 757 and 767) that can be easily wired for remote control (Nasa is using - the bad date on some surveillance camera (it could be also explained by a bad setting)- why none of the hijackers were on the plane manifest- why none of their DNA was officially found in the Pentagon- why they had to invent such "lousy" evidences to prove they were on the planes (like the incredibly resistant Atta's passport found a couple of blocks away from the WTC!)- why some of the hijackers / terrorists were reported alive after 9/11. - the incredible skills of some inexperienced pilots like Hani Hanjour

my theories (to be taken with 3 cups of salt or more)- maybe some of them were really on the planes as "patsies" playing a role in what they thought was only an exercise (the official exercise of that day)-for others, like Atta, maybe it was a convenient way to get ride of a drug trading partner / competitor who was getting dangerous / treacherous or simply sacrificed. - or even crazier, maybe the hijackers were "hijacked" by someone making sure they don't fail...

Rapt, the "evidence" that the planes were remote controlled is bullshit. I am allowing your comment for one reason -- to address this remark:

"While Hopsicker is able to dig up a lot of smelly facts for us, I have yet to see him build a cohesive story around them. Seems that he likes to leave these interesting tidbits hanging, perhaps for others to build a case?"

I don't like the insinuation that he deliberately likes to leave "tidbits hanging." What writer on earth LIKES to do such a thing?

On the other hand, it is a capital mistake (as Sherlock was forever reminding Watson) to speculate when one does not a sufficient number of facts. Or to offer surmise AS fact.

One of the things that has always bothered me about most 911 theorists is that they were heavy on the speculation. They act like they know EVERYTHING. They've acted that way since -- I dunno -- September 13, 2001. And Hopsicker has been trying to show that we don't have nearly as much data about the hijackers as much as we need to have.

So when one is trying to investigate any mystery, any "secret thing," the most HONEST investigators are the ones who seem to leave bits out and who do not create an easily-understood linear narrative. They are not doing so because they are hiding something. They do so because they are presenting the facts, and the facts do not come all at once on a plate. You get 'em one at a time. That's the way life is. To overlay those facts with a preconceived storyline would be -- as Sherlock would say -- a capital mistake.

But lesser intellects -- such as yours, rapt -- love their storylines. They want to be able to reconstruct the wall painting from a few fragments. They do NOT want to go into the field and dig up more fragments, as Hopsicker is trying to do.

Oh, and Hyperman: I am disallowing your comments because they are more of the tranny same, even though you pretend otherwise. I want the readers to address the topic of the post. You would initiate a topic switch. I'd rather not have any comments than have to face each morning a flurry of THOSE comments.

Do you have any idea how irritating it is to have some NEW evidence about Atta placed on the table, only to see that the readers would rather mindlessly repeat the same old myths? I don't know if you can understand how disheartening this situation is for me.

For the same reason, I get disheartened when I contemplate the numbers who believe in Creationism or who watch Fox News. If the audience is not worth talking to, why write or speak?

It's only that the more I discover about Atta's previous life, the "drug dealer who transform into a religious zealot willing to commit suicide for his cause" theory doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Call me stupid, but even the explanation of a "special permission from God" to commit sins for the cause doesn't make a lot of sense. He seemed like he was really pushing it, like cocaine and lap dances at the strip club. Is there more documentation on this "special permision theory" ?

"Just to give you an idea, I have a quote from an expert, his name is Mahmoud Mustafa Ayoub, he’s a professor of religion at Temple University in Philadelphia, and he specializes in Islamic and Middle East studies, he said… “It’s incomprehensible that a person could drink, and go to a strip bar one night, then kill themselves the next day in the name of Islam. People who would kill themselves for their faith, would come from very strict Islamic ideology. Something doesn’t add up here.”"

I think I'm going to close off comments here. But I do want to say something re: Hyperman's point.

About six girlfriends ago, I had a gf who was (and I presume still is) a professional translator. She received her MA from what may be THE top translation school in the country, one which attracted many foreign students. Although she had no first-hand (or even second-hand) evidence of it, my gf heard rumors that the CIA often tried to recruit the foreign kids studying at that place. I have no doubt that this was and remains true.

At any rate, virtually everyone connected with that school (students and faculty) thought that the pupils from Islamic countries were INFURIATING. Why? Because they were always lecturing and hectoring the Americans on their "decadence." And yet, as long as they were living here, the Arab kids made damned sure to get as big a swig of American-bottled decadence as they could chug before being shipped back to Dubai or Jordan or Saudi Arabia or wherever.

These holier-than-thou Islamic guys were always "coming on" to every female in the crudest ways. Age and weight were not issues: If you had a vagina, these guys were after you. In fact, they were downright laughable. My gf compared them to that old SNL "Wild and crazy guys" routine.

More than that. They indulged in tons of drinking. Lots of drugs. Even open pit pork barbecues!

And yet they sneered at the Americans for being morally lax. Routinely. Every day.

That's why, when the first stories emerged about Atta visiting strip clubs, I was not even SLIGHTLY surprised. Don't quote to me the official pronouncements about the way these guys OUGHT to act. They do not mean a thing.